To Forgive The Vine
by NotWhoYouThinkThisIs
Summary: All it takes to set you free is one moment of repentance, and Lo: “out of the mouth of babes” shall come wisdom. Crabbe gets a little lesson in forgiveness.... from a First Year. Future-fic, drabble, all-dialogue.


**Author's Note:**

**Tequila:** ooooh, ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night!!

**Justin:** or… just a ghost. And a small, hyperactive child. Which is equally as frightening.

**Tequila:** to set our scene: a young girl walks down a hallway on the seventh floor, and reaches out to try a doorway that she thinks is perfectly safe. The ghost of the boy who haunts that hall knows otherwise…

**Disclaimer:** umm… mebbeh J.K.R. would forgive us for stealing the rights??

To Forgive The Vine

"Child…. Don't… go… in there."

"_Huh?_"

"Don't. Go. In. There."

"Who are _you_?"

"I… am… nobody."

"You're a _ghost_."

"Yes."

"I read all about ghosts in _Hogwarts, a Retrospective_, by Hermione Granger-Weasely. It's one of my favorite books."

"Hermione… Weasely…"

"Yeah. It's a really old book, but I like it. It's not required, or anything, but I got it at Flourish and Blotts when I went to pick up my school stuff with my mum."

"With your mum…"

"Yeah, my dad died when I was really little, so I just live with my mum now. She can't do magic, but she says he could—that's how she knew I was going to be a witch. She gave me this photograph of him, and it _moves_, just like the portraits here. You know, Muggle photographs don't move? Not _at all_."

"Don't… move?"

"So, if you're a ghost, when d'you die? You don't look dead… not _really_ dead."

"I am dead."

"Well, _yeah_, if you're a ghost, of course you're dead. When d'you die?"

"A long… time… ago."

"Blimey. How long? Like, in the days of King Arthur? Or, or, back in the olden times, when people still didn't have cars or electric lights or anything?"

"Elek-trik lights?"

"Whoa! You must be _really_ old. What year? I bet it was 1066… are you a Norman?"

"Nine…teen… nineteen… ninety…eight."

"Oh. Well. That's not _very_ old, just like… um… one hundred years. Or something."

"Something?"

"Yeah. Well. It's 2133 now."

"Twenty one… thirty… three?"

"Uh-huh. I bet _loads_ of stuff has changed since you died… well, loads of Muggle stuff, anyway. Wizards kind of seem to stay the same, don't they?"

"Same…"

"Hang on—1998? Like, the year of the _Battle of Hogwarts_? Did you die in the Battle of Hogwarts? Were you _famous_, or something? Did you know _Harry Potter_?"

"Potter? I knew… Potter…"

"Gosh! You know, he only died a few years ago? I heard all about it. Apparently there was this big memorial service, and I didn't go, because I was still living with my mum and she's a Muggle and everything, but my friend Ginny went—Ginny Longbottom, and she's named after her grandma, who was named after Ginny _Potter_, you know, the famous one? So Ginny said she went to the service and then she went to the _other_ funeral, the one for just family, and that Ginny Potter gave a speech, and so did Hermione Granger-Weasely—you know, the one who wrote my book—and _Albus Potter_, and Fred Weasely, and all sorts of famous people, although a lot of them were really _old_. I thought it was really cool."

"Potter… Potter was there… and…"

"So, did you die during the Battle of Hogwarts, then? I read about it in _Hogwarts, a Retrospective_, fifty people died, and I have the list right here… are you on it? I mean, you would be, right? Everyone who died at the Battle is on the list, I mean, except the Death Eaters, so—"

"I am… not on a… list."

"Oh."

"I was… I was… I am not on… a list…"

"So. Were you a Death Eater then? Because the only reason I can think of for you not being on the official list was if you were a Death Eater. If you were, then that's okay. I mean, it wasn't a very nice thing to do, and I'm sort of glad you died—no offense—but it was a long time ago and I bet you're real sorry now, aren't you?"

"Sorry?"

"Yeah. Sorry. If you're sorry for what you do than it makes up for it. My mum always said that… um… to air is human, to forgive the vine… or something like that. But that means it's okay to mess up, as long as you say you're sorry."

"Then… I am sorry?"

"Well, that's okay then. As long as you're sorry. I mean, when I knocked over this vase, one time, mum was really upset, but I said I was really sorry and it was an accident, and like my nan says 'that's why we have a word for accidents, because they're different,' so if you do something bad but it's an accident and you're really sorry, then it doesn't count, right?"

"Doesn't… count?"

"Nope. Doesn't count. Especially if you're a wizard, I mean, you can just _fix stuff_. That's my favorite thing about magic, being able to just do that. That's why Charms is my favorite class—I mean, I like Transfiguration too, but that's really hard, and Potions scares me a little—Professor Thrush is kind of creepy—and I'm really bad at Defense Against the Dark Arts… so I guess Care of Magical Creatures is my second favorite class, although I really like Astronomy, and History of Magic too. And Herbology is fun. Most of the time. Though Michael McLaggen is always knocking me over when I get up to get stuff. I don't like him, but Professor Vimes—that's my Head of House, Professor Vimes, she's really nice—says that _maybe_ he only does it because he _likes_ me. Did you like anybody when you were alive?"

"No."

"Oh. I'm sorry. That's actually really sad, because there's lots of reasons to like people, you know. Sometimes people can be really nice, even people you don't think would be nice. This one time, Ginny—that's my friend Ginny Longbottom—dropped her bag and it ripped and _Joshua Zabini_ picked it up for her. He's this really scary Third-Year, and he's on the Gryffindor Quidditch team and _everything_. But he just stopped and fixed her bag and handed it to her and was really nice about it, she said."

"He was… nice, this Zabini?"

"Yeah. But I think she kind of fancies him, now, because she keeps blushing whenever she sees him at meals."

"Your friend… Ginny… does she blush… often?"

"A lot, actually. She doesn't like it, but I think it's funny."

"I would think… that it was… funny, as well."

"Yeah. So, how did you die?"

"There was… a fire."

"_Gosh_. During the Battle of Hogwarts? I think I remember… it said that fires broke out… um… wait, I can remember this, um… in the Ravenclaw Tower, in the Dungeons in two different places, by the Hospital Wing, and on the seventh floor corridor… and that's here. So did you die in this fire? Wasn't that a fire someone set on purpose? 'Cause I remember that Harry Potter was there, and he rescued somebody… or something like that, and only one person—oh."

"Yes?"

"You're the one who set the fire. I remember now. The only person who died was the boy who set the fire."

"Yes."

"So… you did set the fire? Whoa. Um, maybe that wasn't a very smart thing to do."

"Yes."

"But… are you sorry?"

"Yes."

"Really, _truly_ sorry?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"Well, do you wish you didn't do it? Not just because you died, and all, but because it was wrong to do?"

"…Yes."

"Hey! Hey! Where'd you go? What happened? Mr. Ghost? ... That's so cool. I have to tell Ginny—with the _light_, and the wind, and _everything_. That'll be better than anything that ever happened to McLaggen, for sure! Ha!"


End file.
